A brother and a sister, for better or for worse

[venta]

On Saturday night, ChrisC and I were strolling across the North Circular on the way to the cinema. Not that we were a danger to traffic, we used a pelican crossing and everything. As a car which had stopped at the lights pulled away, the passenger wound down the window, leaned out and yelled at us "Are you two twins?"

Now, I can understand the question. Superficially, we look quite similar: similar height, similar hair-colour, and we both have long hair[*]. We have - occasionally - been mistaken for each other by people who know us well (though admittedly at a distance, or in photographs, and not recently).

What baffled me was that the shouter clearly intended it to be a cutting and deadly insult. As it was, it left us both faintly amused with a side order of "eh?"

Of course, it is possible that our fashionably-tousled teenager has embarked on a policy of yelling weird things out of windows with the aim of causing confusion and cognitive dissonance all over London (I'd certainly find that much more fun than hurling abuse at people).

[*] We also wear nearly-identical, independently-chosen glasses. Though mine were in my bag at the time, rather than on my face, so not directly relevant. On the rare occasions I leave mine lying around somewhere in our flat, whole seconds of hilarity ensue.

What's the strangest thing anyone's ever shouted at you?

Comments

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

Weirdist comment David and I had thrown at us was "You shop at Marks and Spencers". We were in Sainsburys at the time.
I still have no idea what that was about and how it was supposed to be insulting!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Presumably accusing someone of shopping at M&S is tantmount to accusing them of being a solid bastion of boring, middle-class, middle-of-the-roadness. Which some people may find insulting.

Not quite sure why it made sense to level it at you and David, though!

(And anyway, surely "you shop at Sainsbury's" would mean pretty much the same thing!?)

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

I didn't get the impression they were erudite enough to be implying so much, but I could be wrong!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Maybe that was the problem. Lacking an inherent grasp of the British class system, or knowledge of words like "bastion", they had to fall back on likening people to high street chains :)